ROWAN SAYS REAGAN CALLED TO APPLAUD `WIN'

Syndicated columnist Carl Rowan said he received a congratulatory call from President Reagan for "winning" a gun possession case that ended with a hung jury and prosecutors declining to retry the writer.

Rowan told the Washington Post that Reagan called him Friday morning before the president set out on a campaigning mission in Michigan for the Republican presidential ticket."(He) congratulated me on winning the case (and said) he thought it was an outrage that the city tried to prosecute me," Rowan said.

Rowan, 63, a longtime gun control advocate and liberal columnist, was charged with possessing an unregistered firearm and illegally possessing ammunition under the city's stringent gun-control law after he shot and slightly wounded a teenager behind his home in the early morning hours of June 14.